E2NZ.org

New Zealand has many gangs

For background to this story read our Turangi Campsite Attack posts.

The Sunday Star times reported today that the 16 year old youth, who admitted he’d raped and beaten the five year old Belgian girl at Camp Habitat in Turangi, has “gang connections” and that the family are “rotten apples” The youth may also have committed the crime as part of a gang initiation process.

The Star-Times understands the teen’s father had been associated with the gang, but not since the attack, which shocked New Zealand in the lead-up to Christmas. The boy’s father cannot be named for legal reasons.

The claims were made by several sources close to the investigation.

The family and the boy are connected to a gang,” one said. “The family is gang-associated. It’s not just the father.”

Another source said: “The family are well-recognised as being what they are … rotten apples. Where are you heading in society when you have this underbelly?”…

…The Star-Times has been shown a photo that shows him posing, shirtless, with a gang nickname and an anti-police slogan clearly visible.”

Facebook “Killah”

Presumably that is the same photograph that appears on the public Facebook page of a youth with the same name as the alleged offender. It shows him wild-eyed and bare-chested, his nose and lower face marked with a pen drawn moko, and with the words “Killah” “FTP” (fuck the police) and “Wat Up Naaw” written in rough script across the image. Other pictures on his scant public profile show him involved with a cultural group of young people. The Whaleoil blog has published a blurred faced version of the “Killah” image.

We already know that Turangi locals said that the Mongrel Mob was out in force on the night that the girl was attacked as she lay sleeping in her holiday caravan. We also know that members of the Notorious Chapter of the Mongrel Mob have been involved in the Salvation Army’s residential Hauora treatment programme (for P addicts) which had been held at the holiday camp.

The Star’s news has been discussed on the Trade Me forum, a local New Zealand chat board. These are some of the things that Kiwis are saying about it and about the wider problem of organised gangs in New Zealand, one person calls them “urban terrorists“, another despairs that New Zealand is no longer a good place to raise children (additional thread link)

Warning: Some of these comments contain graphic descriptions of gang outrages and alleged injuries that were inflicted on the 5 year old Belgian girl.  Discretion is advised.

• so good of the s.s.t to tell us what we already figured out.

• If the govt can swiftly pass an act concerning Piracy, why can’t they pass an act making Gangs illegal as they did in Holland and Germany.

• the gangs are alive and well in this country,and run a lot of the towns,i know because my dad was an ex angel……..gangs are not nice people and have more going on inside of them than naive people think they know…….his mates used to visit him up until a couple of yours ago and no they werent clean living honest people at all. but i also thought the teen who raped the 5 year old would not be right in the head anyway,he would have a tendancy towards children and pedophilia

• The bastard who did this to the 5 year old should be shot. He apparently shattered her pelvis, bit off bits of her face, lips and ears and broke 5 teeth.

• I wish they could eradicate the whole family. My Aunty was the victim of a Gang initiation by two 16 year olds and two 18 year olds. She was brutally raped and murdered and left in an Orchard. She left behind two of her own children and two adopted children. The 16yr olds were out in 18 months. My family and I will always hate gangs, it doesn’t matter which one, they’re all just as evil as each other.

• As soon as the Hells Angels step foot in this country the Police eradicate them/ Yet our home gangs go untouched. Every week 3-5 young women are tortured and raped. These may also be gang connected but, until people begin to see the gangs in this country for what they really are and how many in the government kowtow to them, it will continue. We need to open our eyes and say enough!

• The guys I know who are sent to low security prisons pretty much have to join a gang as soon as they get inside, or be intimidated. And then do what the gang wants. So a young man already looking at being recruited would readily be taken under their wing. None of them enjoy their time in jail, but life outside is often as violent as inside, so no real difference. They just can’t do exactly what they want inside.

• The bigger gangs such as Hells Angles run our gangs. it is where they source a lot of there drugs, business assoiciates and finance from. I have seen minutes from gang meetings and exersice books full of business figures and i can tell you the general public don’t know the half of it and probably just as well. Gangs have lawyers, Accountants, pharmacists etc as active members of these gangs. I have never seen hard proof of a police officer currently as an memeber of a gang but i have certainly met ones that have been. But anyway when you see the gangs family trees they all stem back to the larger overseas gangs such as the Triads and hells angles etc. when we see gangs such as the mongrel mob we see patches and unruly thugs, but never see the the very clean living non tattoed well educated middle man or the well to do white collar suit and tie businesman higher up the chain, the shakers and movers..

• I recall that the police were originally reported as saying that there were were NO gang connections. Did the police lie? In any case, some good can come out of this. Any gang that is involved in violence can be made a banned organisation. It would then be an offence to wear gang clothing/patch, or to associate with each other.

• I think it’s about time to treat these gang members as terrorists, as that’s what they are…urban terrorists. People shouldn’t have to live in fear around them and have innocent people get caught up in their fights with each other.

• what saddens me is the attitude of the mid teenagers towards pregnancy etc. the kids i have contact with have the attitude that the girl shouldn’t have “let herself” get pregnant and its considered by the boys who dump them and carry rabbiting everywhere…

• Yeah my daughters had so many friends end up preggers in the last year its ridiculous… Just so glad she has her head screwed on and is more worried about having a life and a career first.

• the reason there are so many child murders and terrible things happening here is because we have growing number of feral people living in NZ with little or no education,who are continuing to breed,they claim claim benefits after benefits as the system enables them to do so……….but nothing is ever done about it,it will continue to get worse until something is done…….its too easy to get a DPB…and these feral women are doing so.

• “The maximum for rape is 20 years, yet the average sentence is just 8 years” Quote from The Law and Order Referendum.

• Well I said in the other thread that it would be a prospect earning his patch, and I’m right sadly. For all the people thinking that gang members have some type of standard, and raping children is too low does the name Delcelia Whittaker ring any bells at all??? Do any of you remember her stepfather (mongrel mob) boasting about carrying her around upside down like a 6 pack?? a finger in each…well you get the drift. Nothing is too low, too low is celebrated.  He will be looked after in jail and receive his patch when he gets out.

this link has heaps of quotes from off this message board on it already lol http://emigratetonewzealand.wordpress.com/

• Well, it’s a fact now, that we are really starting to get a bad name internationally for violenet crime, rape & murder. That’s really very very sad…..

• A friend of mine, who lived in the country many years ago, was outside in the garden with her children when some gang members walked up the drive-way with a petrol can. She thought they were going to ask for petrol but instead they grabbed her and began to rape her. The oldest child quietly took the others inside and dressed them in their pjamas and watched out the window helplessly while his mother was gang raped. The mother was so traumatised she never told her husband or GP for over a year. The child who had watched was also traumatised and he was affected emotionally for many years to come until it was found out that he had seen everything that had been done to his mother.

• it’s not the first time either, we’ve got a reputation of doing this to tourists, remember the other caravan attack on the female of the 2, down by the river part of a camping. I am seriously thinking it’s not good to raise children in NZ anymore.  If I am going to have grandchildren, maybe it’s good they come to NZ for a holiday instead with their parents, but LOCK their tents and caravans. I really don’t see NZ’s state of law and order getting any better, sad to say. ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

One particular comment caught our eye, something about the way in which the youth was taken into custody

And to “negotiate” the arrest of this young offender is a new low.. cultural sensitivity maybe ??

I want to hear of doors being busted in, and family members sitting on the floor with their hands on their heads while Police guns are pointed at them as other officers search for the low life….

Now that we know that the family is alleged to be a bad apples and to have gang affiliations, that gives a possible reason for the police’s softly softly approach. Was it to avoid violent conflict with armed gang members and perhaps to give the gang an opportunity to ‘save face’ and distance themselves from the boy’s actions?

New Zealand’s Gangs:

According to the book Gangs by Ross Kemp New Zealand has more gangs per head than any other country in the world, with about seventy major gangs and over 4,000 patched members in a population of about 4,000,000 people.

According to the sociologist Jarrod Gilbert, New Zealand has had problems with youth and street gangs since the 1950s. However organised crime gangs such as those which currently dominate the New Zealand scene mostly date from the 1970s. ‘Gangsta’ style gangs have been a presence in New Zealand since the early 1990s but individual gangs of this type are typically short lived.

New Zealand gangs have generally been heavily influenced by their American counterparts. Although Black Power takes its name from the black liberation movement of the same name, in many ways it and similar gangs are much more akin to white American motorcycle gangs such as the Hell’s Angels. Since the early 1990s newer gangs have primarily been influenced by African American street gangs such as the Crips and Bloods.

New Zealand's Mongrel Mob patch

Mongrel Mob (from Wikipedia)

The Mongrel Mob is a New Zealand gang, originally formed in Hawke’s Bay in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The gang offers a surrogate ‘family’ for young men, most of whom are often alienated from their family via joining. Members are from New Zealand’s Maori, European or other Polynesian ethnic groups, with Maori or part Maori predominating. The gang currently operates in many cities within New Zealand; some of the best known chapters include Mongrel Mob Hastings, Mongrel Mob Porirua and Mongrel Mob Notorious. Mob members are notorious for their tattooed faces and red bandannas.

The name “mongrel mob” originated from the comments of a District Court Judge in the Hawkes Bay in the late 1960s, when he referred to a group of men before him as “nothing but a pack of mongrels”.^[1] The name stuck, and later, similarly named groups sprang up around the country, forming their own independent chapters.

Today there is a network of more than thirty Mongrel Mob chapters throughout New Zealand. They are especially active in King Country, Opotiki and Hastings . The Mongrel Mob’s main rival is a gang called Black Power and there have been several very public and violent clashes between the two gangs over the years.

The gang’s colours are predominantly red and black. The patches usually feature a swastika and a British Bulldog wearing a German Stahlhelm which supposedly is an image intended to offend as it is a British Bulldog wearing the helmet. The patch is worn on the back of “patched members” – those considered loyal and trustworthy enough to be in the gang. The patch will also be tattooed on the member’s body.

A Prospect is a person who is loyal to the gang but is not a “patched member” yet and must normally do errands or “missions” to show his loyalty to his gang. A Prospect normally has a “patched member” to report or “clock in” to. This “patched member” normally decides when it is time for the Prospect to be “patched”.

The hierarchy goes as follows: Captain or President, Vice President, Sergeant at arms, Patched members, Prospects. In some cases they use younger blood gangs as Prospects.

Links in the press to some other NZ gang atrocities

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/tags/mongrel-mob

http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/two-mongrel-mob-members-jailed/1043137/

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5592814/Call-to-re-open-rape-murder-case-19-years-on

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/4162555/Rapist-took-my-dignity-victim

-/-

Is New Zealand a good place to raise children?

Read our  Facts and Stats about NZ Education and Children’s Issues